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Article Dans Une Revue Paradigmi. Rivista di critica filosofia Année : 2015

Redesigning the argument from design

Résumé

This paper questions the "arguments from design" that inferred from the functions of organism, their structure or their fit to their environment the fact that they have been designed by an intelligent architect. These arguments are very old, and have been pervasive in philosophy and natural history since Antiquity. Each version connects in some way functions, structure, complexity, with randomness and low probability. Darwin claimed to have solved this argument, because natural selection eliminate the need to appeal to a designer. After having distinguished several types of arguments, regarding whether they consider mostly adaptation and contrivances, or mostly complexity, I analyze the rational core of these arguments in terms of computational notions of complexity and randomness. In the last section, I show the reason why natural selection indeed solves the design argument ; I finally focus on the link between complex adaptation and cumulative selection, and draws some conclusions regarding the relation between chance and selection in current evolutionary biology. For Darwin, the theory of evolution by natural selection was in part aiming at explaining the design of organisms, that is, the fact that they seem to have been designed, a fact which is manifest in the contrivances exhibited by the various plants and animals: he entitled his last book Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilized by Insects, The issue of design as addressed by Darwin was a longstanding problem for natural history and the life sciences, that he thought to have solved, as he said in his Autobiography: "The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered" (Darwin 1869). The history of anatomy and physiology indeed displayed a massive use of arguments from design and inferences to design, with important historical shifts between old and modern physiology (Cunningham, 2000, 2003). The main formulation of this problem in Darwin's time was Paley's Natural theology, and in general the Bridgewater Treatises written by theologians and biologists-which also provided a theological answer. The very general formulation of it was something like: organisms are so complex, exhibit so much "exquisite contrivances", that they cannot be here by chance, so there should be a designer. The following paper aims at formulating in more contemporary 1 terms this problem of design, pinpointing the rational core of some arguments from design, and indicating why natural selection is a solution. However, even though the so-called argument from design-going from a salient design in organisms to conclude to a divine designer-, is overwhelming and has been constantly used from Stoic thinkers like Cicero up to recent supporters of Intelligent Design (throughout many naturalists and philosophers), it is not clear that it is one and the same argument all over the place. Even when-following a distinction between types of design argument made by Gillespie (1990)-we concentrate on arguments from biological design, leaving aside an important kind of argument focusing on the regular design of the stars and the planets and generally the clocklike aspect of the universe as a whole to conclude in favor of a divine architect, it appears that distinct aspects of the phenomenon of organisms are under focus of distinct varieties of the argument: sometimes we are told about complexity, some other times we are told about the fit between organisms and their milieu, etc. The question of this paper is therefore twofold: what is the bulk of the arguments from design, i.e. the (non-) connection between design and chance, and can it be made explicit and rigorous ? If This was sometimes expressed through an appeal to analogy with an artifact, but this appeal is not always 1 present, and sometimes rather pedagogical-see below.
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hal-01968486 , version 1 (02-01-2019)

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  • HAL Id : hal-01968486 , version 1

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Philippe Huneman. Redesigning the argument from design. Paradigmi. Rivista di critica filosofia, 2015. ⟨hal-01968486⟩
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